Letter to THE EDITOR: The plight of teachers needs to be addressed

The plight of teachers needs to be addressed

Through your premier daily, I would like to express my feelings about the notification issued by the government of Assam on May 19, represented by the Commissioner-cum-Secretary of School Education, prescribing the dress code of teachers in the state. The notification says that some of the teachers wear dresses of their own choice, an act that damages the overall impression of the community in front of society. Therefore, the department has made the teachers’ community cautious about their decent appearance, as expected by the public at large from the aforesaid gazette notification. Everything contained in it doesn’t clash with our individual views either. That notification is based on empirical study and circulated by the officers concerned of the district with immediate effect. I have nothing to say against its content. But there is much more to say to the department.

The majority of the teachers in our state wear very decent attire, even today, without any administrative intervention. Besides, they impart education to the best possible extent without any substantial amenities. But they don’t receive any extra scores from the department. Even they can’t resist the victimhood of official red tape in both the district office and the directorate. It is a social irony for the teachers, who seem to be decent by all means; they are scarcely behaved well by the officials whenever they visit their own departmental offices. Still today, the bureaucracy of the education department suffers from a great fallacy in decoding the inner pains of the teachers.

Most of the schools in our state are devoid of sufficient non-teaching staff, which has led many of the teachers to undertake the activities of non-teaching staff for overall maintenance. Due to the lack of requisite fourth grade employees in the majority of schools, teachers remain bound even to ring the bell. This is only the tip of the iceberg of how and why the teachers’ fraternity unknowingly capsizes itself at the cost of their professional code. Therefore, I request the department to formulate a way out by virtue of which the fraternity engaged in nation-building operations could be rescued from the abysmal condition that is evoked not only by the dresses they wear but by many others that are tangible and intangible in nature. The department needs profound scrutiny in various aspects right before the implementation of NEP 2020.

Dr. Rajesh Kakati,

Chamata.

Opposition boycott

The political row over India’s new Parliament opening is the most unfortunate. The new Parliament House (also called Sansad Bhawan) is slated for inauguration on May 28 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But the opposition parties have called for a boycott of the inauguration ceremony being done by the prime minister instead of President Madam Droupadi Murmu. This is a historical event as the new Parliament replaces the colonial-era building, which was known as the Council House during imperial rule. The new Parliament will have additional seats for legislative members, keeping in mind the expansion of the future delimitation of constituencies over the coming centuries. The second important feature is that ancient India’s emblem, ‘Sengol,’ which Pandit Nehru received on August 14, 1947, at the time of the transfer of power to the Indians, will be placed in the new Parliament House. The Sengol signifies wealth and prosperity and belongs to the kings of the Chola dynasty, the south Indian Tamil rulers.

Who will inaugurate may be a debatable point, but the opposition’s call for boycotting such an event of historical and national importance is flimsy and damages the honour and image of our great country. The controversy was raised by the Congress, which instigated other anti-Modi brigades to follow suit. The Congress is unable to stomach the achievements of Narendra Modi in the last nine years in all spheres of the country’s economic and material development and the unprecedented rise of India’s stature overseas. Such a move by the opposition will only embolden anti-India forces, which there is no dearth of within our country. I hope good sense will prevail over the opposition and they will retract that step.

Pannalal Dey,

Guwahati.